Zeman threatens to take civil service bill to Constitutional Court

In an address to the lower house on Tuesday, President Miloš Zeman warned
MPs he would take a civil service bill to the Constitutional Court if they
push the legislation through despite his previously signaled veto. Mr.
Zeman said the amendment would not achieve its stated aim of depoliticising
the civil service but would rather make it more politicised. The government
has won support for the bill by taking on board opposition demands,
including dropping a provision to create a top civil servant whose office
would control the entire system. Mr. Zeman is critical of a provision under
which every minister would have at most two deputies who are political
appointees.

Cabinet to debate EC’s proposal for tightened sanctions against Russia on
Wednesday

The Czech government has received the EC’s proposal for new sanctions
against Russia and the cabinet will meet to debate the proposal on
Wednesday, the Office of the Government announced in a press release on
Tuesday morning. A tripartite meeting of government officials, trade union
leaders and employers will be held on Thursday to debate the impact of the
proposed sanctions. The Czech prime minister said at the EU summit that the
country reserved the right to reject the sanctions should they cause
disproportionately high economic losses. His cautious stand has come under
fire from opposition parties and the coalition Christian Democrats who
likened it to the Munich Agreement of 1938. The opposition parties have
demanded that a special session of cabinet be held on the issue.

Czech PM will have “comments” on proposed EU sanctions on Russia

The Czech Republic will have some comments on proposed new European Union
sanctions against Russia, the prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, has said.
Mr. Sobotka said on Tuesday that Prague would need to proceed in a manner
that most took into account the interests of both the Czech Republic and
the EU. He said he regarded escalating sanctions as highly risky.

The City of Prague has decided to suspend its twinning with the Russian
cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Mayor Tomáš Hudeček wrote on his
Facebook page on Tuesday. The move comes in response to what the mayor
described as the Putin regime’s arbitrary attack on Ukraine, which
threatened not only Ukraine’s sovereignty but the security of the whole
of Europe. Mr. Hudeček called on other Czech cities to follow Prague’s
lead in this regard. The Czech capital is twinned with more than two dozen
cities around the world.

The Proton Therapy Centre in Prague has issued a statement with regard to
reports that it received an application to treat Ashya King, a
five-year-old English boy with a brain tumour whose parents are being held
in custody after removing him from a hospital in the UK. The Proton Therapy
Centre said the application had unfortunately not included health
documentation that would have allowed its doctors and specialists to assess
the boy’s state. However, it said if the boy was suffering from a
medulloblastoma, as his father had stated, proton beam treatment would be a
good choice. The boy and his family were found in Spain following a
Europe-wide search by police.

Police arrest man planning to kill himself and donate organs at Prague
hospital

Police in Prague have arrested a man who threatened people with a weapon at
an emergency admissions building at the city’s Střešovice hospital on
Tuesday morning. They subdued the man, who was reportedly intent on
committing suicide and donating his organs, by using a taser electroshock
weapon and took him away for questioning, police spokesperson Tomáš Hulan
told the Czech News Agency. Nobody was injured during the incident.

National Museum takes possession of materials from Museum of the Workers’
Movement

The National Museum in Prague has taken possession of 700,000 documents and
other items from the Museum of the Workers’ Movement. The materials map
Czech and Czechoslovak political, social and cultural history in the second
half of the last century. Among the acquisitions are the written
capitulation of German forces in Prague on May 8 1945, the original
manuscript of letters written by Communist journalist Julius Fučík
shortly before his execution by the Nazis, a figure carved out of bread by
Antonín Zápotocký when he was in prison and a bust of Lenin. Some of the
items will go on display in the National Museum’s main building, which is
undergoing renovations due to conclude in 2018.

New documentary about Czech traveller Miroslav Zikmund screened

A new feature-length documentary about the famous Czech traveller Miroslav
Zikmund received a pre-premiere screening in his town of Zlín on Monday
night. Petr Horký’s film Století Miroslava Zikmunda (Miroslav
Zikmund’s Century) will enter cinema distribution on Thursday. Speaking
at a sold-out Velké kino cinema, Mr. Zikmund, who is 95, recalled
presenting the pair’s first full-length film on the same stage in the
1950s with his travelling partner Jiří Hanzelka, who died in 2003. The
two visited more than 80 countries in a Tatra car between 1947 and 1950 and
1959 and 1964 before being barred from travelling or participating in
public life after 1968.

Para-cycling champion Ježek in serious but stable condition after accident

Czech Paralympics champion Jiří Ježek, who was seriously injured at the
World Championship in Greenville on Sunday is in serious but stable
condition and will have to undergo more surgery in the coming days,
according to his coach Viktor Zapletal. The 39-year-old suffered a serious
chest injury requiring emergency surgery and several fractures. Doctors
were planning to operate on his arm on Tuesday but may have to put off
surgery for fear of infection. There is no word on when he could be
transported home.

Czech coach philosophical about star players’ lack of game time

Speaking on the eve of a friendly against the USA in Prague, Czech football
manager Pavel Vrba said he was curious how players who have not appeared
for their clubs would look in training and during the match itself. Neither
of the team’s leading players, Tomáš Rosický of Arsenal and Petr Čech
of Chelsea, have performed so far this season. Vrba said they would on the
other hand be rested for Wednesday’s game, which precedes a European
Championship qualifier against the Netherlands next week.